Looks like something is wrong with howtoforge or CDN. When logged in to forum.howtoforge.com, I keep getting at bottom of browser window "waiting for server from forum.howtoforge.com", and popup window occasionally shows several concentcdn.cookiebot.eu -lines. Browser keeps trying to load the page and never finishes.
I did not had any problems, but I was not online that often on new years eve. Probably just a temporary issue at Ezoic or CloudFlare.
Howtoforge runs on a virtualized server infrastructure based on Debian Linux with Nginx as the web server. The forum section uses Xenforo, a commercial PHP-based forum software. The tutorial section is a custom CMS. We use Cloudflare as a distributed content cache, CDN, and WAF system.
I will not go into more detail on the setup. The specs of the servers depend on how much load the CMS and system causes and Howtoforge is run on a custom and optimized CMS, uses in RAM caching optimizations etc., so you can't compare it directly to other systems anyway.
